UAE ‘backed’ Colombian fighters in Sudan, says report
Newshour
BBC
4.2 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 22 April 2026
⏱️ 43 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Conflict Insights Group tracked Colombian mercenaries fighting in Sudan for the RSF via their cell phones. They were recruited and trained at the behest of the United Arab Emirates, the report claims, allegations refuted by Abu Dhabi.
Also in the programme: European Union ambassadors have approved a $100 billion loan to Ukraine; and a playwright who dramatised Leicester City's improbable Premier League title of a decade ago, on how the club have been related to the third tier of English football.
(Photo: Supporters of Lieutenant General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, head of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), arrive for a meeting in Aprag village, Sudan, on 22 June 2019. Credit: Reuters/Umit Bektas)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:09.7 | Hello and welcome to NewsAire for the BBC World Service. |
| 0:13.2 | We're coming to you live from London. |
| 0:15.0 | I'm James Menendez. |
| 0:16.2 | And coming up later in the programme, we'll be getting the latest on the war in Iran, |
| 0:20.7 | including a report |
| 0:21.8 | from our chief correspondent, Lees Doucet, who is in Tehran, and she's been speaking to people there. |
| 0:26.8 | Just moved back one year ago. I lived in Berlin for 16 years. And I just moved back because I love Iran, |
| 0:33.6 | and I thought, if I'm not here now, when should I be here? More from Lees and those she's been speaking to in the Iranian capital in about half an hour. |
| 0:43.6 | But we are going to start today in Sudan and a new report into the involvement of foreign forces in the country's long-running civil war. |
| 0:52.3 | Interventions that most observers believe are fueling the conflict and |
| 0:56.7 | preventing a settlement. In this case, the foreign forces are Colombian mercenaries, who, the report |
| 1:02.8 | says, were brought in by the United Arab Emirates to help one side in the war, the rapid support |
| 1:09.1 | forces, or RSF, and help them capture the city of Alfasha last year. |
| 1:14.5 | The siege and eventual takeover of El Fasher in the Darfur region is one of the most brutal chapters of the conflict with widespread reports of atrocities. |
| 1:23.6 | Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Do you! Well, in that clip, well, in that clip from Elfash, shared on social media in August last year, |
| 1:39.3 | you can hear Spanish-speaking soldiers. |
| 1:41.8 | It was apparently filmed by one of those Colombian mercenaries. Their presence |
| 1:46.7 | has been spoken about before, but the report's authors, and we'll be hearing from one of them in a |
| 1:51.1 | moment, say they've now established a clear link between them and the United Arab Emirates. The UAE |
| 1:57.3 | has always denied supporting the RSF in its fight against the Sudanese army. |
| 2:02.1 | In 2024, there was this heated exchange at a UN Security Council meeting |
... |
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